/ 



OUR ANCIENT LANDMARKS. 



TH E S ERMO N 

3r/ 



DELIVERED IN 



St. Paul's Church, Albany, 



Bi-Centennial Commemoration 
of the city's charter, 

The Fourthi Sunday after Trinity, 1886. 



BY THE 

Rev. MAUNSELL VAN RENSSELAER, D. D., LL. D. 



Published by Request of the Rector and Vestry of the Church. 



ALBANY: 

THE ARGUS COMPANY, PRINTERS. 

1886, 






7 



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$t Paul's (JJiurri ^Elbang. 

ORDER OF SERVICE. 

Morning Prayer. 

The Proper Psalms xliv, 1-9, inclusive ; xlvi and cxiii. 

The First Lesson, Zech. viii, 1-18. 

The Second Lesson, St. Luke xii, 18-35. 

Collect said after the Collect for the Day. 

Almighty God, who hast in all ages showed forth 
Thy power and mercy in the wonderful preservation 
of Thy Church, and in the protection of every nation 
and people professing Thy Holy and Eternal Truth and 
putting their trust in Thee, we yield Thee unfeigned 
thanks and praise for all Thy mercies, and more 
especially for the gracious manifestation of Thy provi- 
dence which we commemorate this day. Bless, we 
pray Thee, the magistrates and citizens of this city. 
Preserve unto us all rightful liberties, and make us so 
dutiful and faithful unto Thee that we may come, at 
the last, to be citizens of that city that hath founda- 
tions whose builder and maker Thou art. We ask it 
through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. 

Special Thanksgiving after the General Thanksgiving. 

Almighty God, who in the former time didst lead 

our fathers forth into a wealthy place and set their 



feet in a large room, we yield Thee unfeigned thanks 
and praise for all Thy mercies, and especially for that 
Thou hast kept this our city under Thy watchful care. 
Blessed be Thy name for the increase of its inhabit- 
ants, the growth of its industries and the advance of 
its prosperity. Blessed be Thy name for the advance- 
ment among us of sound learning, sober morality and 
Christian faith ; defend our liberties, preserve our unity 
and make us a people mindful of Thy favor and glad 
to do Thy will. Grant us to be kindly affectioned one 
toward another with brotherly love ; and keep us in 
Thy Holy Faith and Fear through Jesus Christ, our 
Lord. Amen. 



SERMON. 



Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers 
HAVE set. — Proverbs xxii, 28. 

If among the motley ship's company of 
" The Halve Maan," which brought Hendrick 
Hudson to our shores in 1609, there chanced 
to be a Hollander whose memory went back 
to the year of grace 1567, it must have been 
stored with "battles, sieges," "moving accidents 
by flood and field," and " garments rolled in 
blood. " His had been a strange, abhorrent 
experience ; for that was the ever-memorable 
year when Alva began, with rack and thumb- 
screw, stake and gibbet, and other tender 
mercies of the Inquisition, his vain attempt 
to restore the authority of the Roman Pontiff 
over the Netherlanders, and to reduce them 
under the absolute dominion of Philip II. 
The gallant people had first suffered, and then 
risen and struggled on, under William the 
Silent and his son Maurice, Princes of Orange, 



making up for their losses and sufferings on 
land by great achievements on the ocean. For 
thirty years the struggle had lasted, without 
rest or respite, and yet " the United Provinces 
were then without any rival on the seas. In 
Europe alone they had 1,200 merchant ships 
in active service, and upwards of 70,000 sailors 
constantly employed. They built annually 2,000 
vessels."^ The child born in that eventful 
year had reached the age of forty-two before 
there came a lull in the tempest ; and when 
Hudson dropped the anchor of the Half Moon 
in the quiet waters of our river and set foot 
on its sandy bank, September 16, 1609, the 
independence of the United Provinces had been 
won, and a truce for twelve years ratified. 

This needed respite was not given up to 
idleness ; but was employed by the indefatiga- 
ble Netherlanders in reorganizing their internal 
affairs, and extending and improving their for- 
eign possessions. A bank was established at 
Amsterdam ; a Governor-General was appointed 
for the Indies ; intercourse was opened with 

' Grattan's Hist, of the Netherlands, p. 175. 



7 
Japan; a large loan was repaid to James I. 
of England; Batavia in Java was founded; 
and companies chartered to profit by the dis- 
coveries of Hudson. Had this been all to 
be recorded of those years of truce there 
would have been small cause for sorrow or 
shame ; but they also witnessed the bitter 
religious strifes which culminated in the judi- 
cial murder of the patriot Barneveldt, and the 
imprisonment of the learped and illustrious 

Grotius. 

The earliest attempts of the Dutch West 
India Company to colonize the New Nether- 
lands had proved unsuccessful ; " the want of 
success was beyond expectation."^ While they 
were formulating a plan to remedy the failure, 
under the title of " Freedoms and Exemp- 
tions," "for the benefit of the General West 
India Company, and the advantage of the 
Patroons, masters, and private persons," in 
1628, an unexpected event off the harbor of 
Havana gave a great impulse to their plan. 
This plan proposed to give to any member 

» N. Y. Holland Doc. i, p. 84. 



8 

of the company who was bold enough to risk 
his fortune and personal safety in establishing 
colonies in the New Netherlands, the powers 
and privileges of a feudal baron in his new 
domain, subject only to the supreme authority 
of the States General. Just then Hein, their 
Admiral in the West Indies, sailed into 
Amsterdam with the captured " Money Fleet " 
of the Spaniards, and an immense treasure 
which he had taken in it. This enriched 
the stockholders of the company, and enabled 
the bolder and stronger of them to take the 
hazards, in the prospect of reaping the gains 
of the projected colonies. 

The " Colonie of Rensselaerwyck," which 
was the only permanent patroonship estab- 
lished under the new charter, in 1630 gave 
stability and vigor to the little settlement of 
traders which had grown up around Fort 
Orange, and laid the foundations for the 
future city. But it could do no more than 
that. It was contrary to the spirit of Guel- 
derlanders, Frieslanders and Hollanders, from 
whom the fathers of Albany came, for a town 



9 

to remain under a feudal master. For eight 
centuries or more, they had had their " Gilden," 
which grew into town corporations, and had 
increased to such an extent that corporate 
towns had become refuges from tyranny, 
shelters in war, and the guardians of liberty 
in Holland, as in Italy, England and the 
other nations in Europe. The cities had 
" contributed more, perhaps, than any other 
cause, to introduce regular government, police 
and arts, and to diffuse them over Europe." 
" The influence of their institution on govern- 
ment as well as manners was no less exten- 
sive than salutary." When Governor Dongan 
sought from the owners the renunciation of 
their right to the soil, in order to grant our 
city's charter, he experienced no obstacle ; for 
the grantors as well as the grantees had been 
trained in a school which enforced municipal 
freedom ; and while securing and consolidat- 
ing their own possessions, they wisely and 
liberally aided in carrying out the plans for 
settling the country which had been begun 
more than half a century before. 



lO 

We inaugurate to-day the ceremonies and 
the festivities with which we purpose to com- 
memorate this event of two centuries ago. 
It was the first, and probably the only, repro- 
duction on this Continent of a well-established 
custom in the Middle ages of freeing a town, 
by giving it a charter, from all claims of 
feudal service. Sixteen square miles in the 
heart of the manor were secured by Gov- 
ernor Thomas Dongan for the city limits, he 
" judging it not for his Majesty's interest that 
the second town of the Government, and which 
brings his Majesty so great a revenue, should 
be in the hands of any particular men." He 
was right in his judgment, and experienced 
no opposition in carrying it out. The appli- 
cation for the charter was made by the 
citizens in May ; it was signed July twenty- 
second ; and on the twenty-sixth it is recorded, 
" In nomine Domini Jesu Christi, Amen," that 
Pieter Schuyler, Mayor, and Robert Living- 
ston, Town Clerk, and the other city officers 
were duly qualified. The population of the 
whole county, including the " Colonie " and 



II 

the outlying " bouweries," did not amount to 
2,200, which would allow a very moderate 
number for those who lived within the city 
stockades. But small as it was, it was made 
up of sturdy, resolute and independent men, 
and women well endowed with gifts to make 
homes happy, and to lighten the hardships and 
perils of a frontier life. The act which 
invested them with the powers of self-govern- 
ment had far-reaching effects. It brought to 
the front very able and distinguished men, who 
did noble service in trying times ; it established 
a community which for the greater part of a 
century, and till the close of the Revolution, 
held its ground as the bulwark of the British 
Colonies and of the United States in their 
struggle for independence ; and it laid the foun- 
dations of the Capital city of the chief State 
in the Union. 

It is ritrht, then, and our most bounden 
duty, that we should commemorate this event, 
both for itself and for the goodly fruits which 
it has produced. It is well for us to rejoice 
and give our heartiest thanks for it. Without 



12 

forgetting that the great prophetic words of 
Isaiah apply only in their fullness to the 
triumph of the great Prince and Captain of 
our salvation, Jesus Christ, we would rever- 
ently and gratefully adapt them to our own 
humble experience — 

" Thou hast multiplied the nation, and increased its 
joy ; they joy before Thee according to the joy in 
harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the 
spoil," 

But we cannot enter upon such a commemo- 
ration as this without being impressed with 
a tender and subduing awe. Every step we 
take is among the tombs of the departed. 
On every side of us rise up the forms of 
those who lived and acted here, as we are 
doing now, and the fruits of whose labors 
and sufferings we are enjoying. We are 
like travelers treading in meditative mood a 
venerable church in foreign lands, where 

" The high embowed roof, 
With antic pillars massy proof 
And storied windows richly dight, 
Casting a dim religious light," 

Invest with a more solemn interest and a 
softer halo the monuments and relics which 



13 

perpetuate the memory of those who have 
gone before us, and " rest from their labors, 
and their works do follow them." Yet, though 
solemn and awe-inspiring, it ought not to be 
sad. It is good to be animated, it is profit- 
able to be warned by their examples. While 
mere ancestral pride is a folly and a sin, like 
all other pride ; and " the only distinction 
worth having is that which grows by building 
honor out of one's own virtue, and not by 
inheriting it from the virtue of others ; " still 
there is a healthful and invigorating moral 
influence in the recollection of worthy and 
virtuous progenitors. No one, whatever may 
be his state in life, can see his father's name 
emblazoned on a public monument for a gen- 
erous or heroic deed, and not shrink from 
what may dishonor it, even if he be not 
stimulated to imitate it. 

There is, indeed, a false devotion to the 
past, against which King Solomon warns us : 

" Say not thou, What is the cause that the former 
days were better than these ? for thou dost not inquire 
of wisdom concerning this." 



14 

" Let the dead Past bury its dead," has 
become an American watchword. Certainly, 
" let the dead Past bury its dead ; " but the 
living Past has no dead to bury ; and there 
has been a Hving Past, which survives in the 
fruits of its labors, its teachings, its suffer- 
ings, and its examples. It is the quality of 
living things to propagate and diffuse them- 
selves. "Your fathers, where are they?" In 
the hand of God, as departed out of this 
life, and *' sleeping in the Lord," as the 
devout records of your ancient family Bibles 
phrase it. 

" They live ! they greatly live a life on earth 
Unkindled, unconceived." 

And do they not survive in you, their children ? 
And do not these centennial celebrations testify 
the hold they keep on our imaginations, if not 
on our veneration and gratitude ? The " dead 
Past " is symbolized by those ruined and 
empty tombs which one sees along the Appian 
Way at Rome, the once magnificent resting- 
places of men whose " inward thought was, that 
their houses should continue forever, and their 



15 

dwelling-places to all generations." Unwarned 
by their history, we are striving at this day to 
outrival their pride and extravagance in costly 
tombs and monuments, forgetting that the 
only worthy and lasting memorial of the dead 
is that which ministers to the welfare and 
happiness of the living. But such are the 
"dead" whom "the dead Past" claims as its 
own, having buried with them the last vestiges 
of their names and relics, for they brought 
forth no " fruit unto God." Such is not the 
Past which we recall in these ceremonies, or 
we should not be here to commemorate it, 
as we do this day. 

Let us, then, reverently trace back the 
links of the golden chain that binds us with 
those who have gone before us, and who have 
built up for us the goodly heritage which we 
possess. Even if the two centuries of our 
city's life have passed without " trailing clouds 
of glory as they came," yet 

"The thought of our past years in us should breed 
Perpetual benediction." 



i6 

If we should forget them, if we should 
neglect their lessons, we should surely cut 
ourselves loose from one of the essential ele- 
ments of true progress. 

" Past and Future are the wings, 
On whose support harmoniously conjoined, 
Moves the great spirit of human knowledge." 

" The voice that issues from this spirit," 
says Wordsworth, " is that Vox Populi which 
the Deity inspires, in sharp contrast with the 
presumed infallibility in the clamor of that 
small though loud portion of the community, 
ever governed by present material interests or 
factious influence, which, under the name of 
the Public, passes itself off upon the unthink- 
ing as the People." Such was the principle 
which guided our fathers, which they brought 
from their " dear Fatherland." They acted on 
the teaching of the Wise King : 

" Wisdom is as good as an inheritance, yea, better 
too; and by it there is profit to them that see the sun. 
The excellency of knowledge is that wisdom giveth 
life to them that have it." — Eccl., vii, ii, 12. 



17 

No one can question the justice of Mon- 
tesquieu's statement, or the illustration of it 
by our subject : 

" As degenerate peoples seldom achieve great things; 
as they have seldom established societies, founded cities, 
given laws ; and as, on the contrary, most settlements 
have originated with those whose manners were simple 
and austere ; so to recall men to the old maxims is ordi- 
narily to bring them back to virtue." — Esprit des Lois, v, 7. 

The men and women who set the land- 
marks of this city came of a race accustomed 
to hardship and toil ; they themselves had been 
schooled in suffering and peril, which peculiarly 
fitted them to be the pioneers in settling a 
wilderness, in which wild beasts disputed domin- 
ion with wily and cruel savages. They found 
them no worse than the brutal soldiers of Alva 
or their own freebooting countrymen. 

" The history of the Netherlands is essentially that of 
a patient and industrious population struggling against 
every obstacle which nature could oppose to its well- 
being; and, in this contest, man triumphed most com- 
pletely over the elements in those places where they 
offered the greatest resistance. This extraordinary result 
was due to the hardy stamp of character imprinted by 
suffering and danger on those who had the ocean for their 
foe; to the nature of their country, which presented no 
lure for conquest; and, finally, to the toleration, the 
2 



justice and the liberty nourished among men left to 
themselves, and who found resources in their social state 
which rendered change an object of neither their wants 
or wishes." "The vital necessity for the construction of 
dikes to keep back the ocean, had given to the Prison 
and Flemish population a particular habit of union, 
good-will and reciprocal justice, because it was neces- 
sary to make common cause in this great work for their 
mutual preservation. The nation being thus united, 
and consequently strong, the efforts of foreign tyrants 
were shattered by its resistance, as the waves of the sea 
that broke against the dikes by which it was defied." — 
Grattans Hist, of the Netherlands, pp. 17, 29, 30. 

The stern discipline of warfare, waged 
through two whole generations, had inevita- 
bly borne its crop of vices and crimes ; but 
they had learned in it patience, self-control, 
firmness of purpose, contempt for self-indul- 
gence and luxury, devotion to duty, a love 
of justice, a hatred of oppression, confidence 
in the over-ruling providence of God. It had 
made them daring and expert sailors and val- 
iant soldiers, and inspired them with the love 
of adventure and indifference to danger. And 
so, while they pursued their own ends patiently, 
industriously, boldly, and often recklessly and 
unrighteously, doing many things which we 
would fain forget, yet God so governed and 



19 

guided them in the way of His Providence, 
that they guarded the lot of their inheritance 
with landmarks which we would never see 
removed. 

And the first and chief of these was that 
reverence for the home life, which character- 
izes the Teutonic races. The foundation of 
this is the sanctity, the inviolability, and the 
permanence of the marriage tie. If not a 
sacrament with them, it was sacramental. 
Husband and wife were one in the Lord, 
and that in no unreal or merely sentimental 
meaning. " For better for worse, for richer 
for poorer, in sickness and in health, till 
death us do part," was understood literally by 
them. No marriage, birth or death was 
recorded without an invocation of the Divine 
blessing. It was not unusual for husband and 
wife to make a joint will, in token of their per- 
fect union and mutual confidence. It secured 
a blessing on the survivor and their descend- 
ants We, whose privilege it has been to be 
reared among the older generation, can testify 
to their unaffected fondness for children, and 



20 

their solicitude about their careful training. 
Some of the tenderest recollections of child- 
hood are associated with the condescending 
kindness that qualified the awe inspired by 
their grave and dignified manners. 

One of the most striking facts in our city's 
history is the unequaled and enduring influ- 
ence of its founders and citizens over the Five 
Nations, the most warlike of the native tribes, 
who had never been subdued, and held an 
undisputed sway and dominion far and wide. 
Every other colony in America had suffered 
from Indian wars, but Albany. From the set- 
tlement of Rensselaerwyck to the Revolution, 
the friendly relations with the Mohawks and 
their allied tribes were never interrupted, and 
they stood unmoved a perpetual bulwark against 
the cruel incursions of the French and Indians 
of Canada. Hence we stand alone as a border- 
town that never had an enemy in arms within 
our defenses, although several well-planned 
attempts were made against us. This influ- 
ence could never have been gained over those 
acute savages without a rare combination of 



21 



justice and fair-dealing with the highest courage 
and self-possession. It was largely due to two 
men of Albany, who have left behind them the 
landmark of these qualities for our guidance. 
No man ever had a nobler testimony to his 
character and conduct than Arent Van Corlaer, 
Commissary of Rensselaerwyck, who gained 
such influence over the Mohawks by his just 
and wise treatment, that the only name which 
they ever after gave the governors of New 
York was " Corlaer." And " Quider," which 
they associated with it, was their testimony to 
the valor, justice and benevolence of Col. Pieter 
Schuyler, the first Mayor of this our city of 
Albany. 

Another landmark which they planted here 
was a noble patriotism, derived from their 
fatherland. It cost them many a pang to 
sunder the ties that bound them to the homes 
and graves of their fathers. Often their 
thoughts and longings would recross the ocean, 
and their children and children's children cher- 
ished and recalled their fond traditions of their 
"beloved Fatherland," as they loved to call it. 



22 

But that did not interfere with their loyalty to 
the land of their adoption, nor to the powers 
that ruled it. So well was this known, and so 
often had it been tested, that the magistrates 
and people of Albany were time after time 
left by their English rulers to spend their 
own blood and money in emergencies which 
threatened the very existence of the British 
rule in America. If they had given way, it 
is not extravagant to say that it could not 
have been restored without a vast expenditure 
of blood and treasure. Nor was it less so in 
the great struggle of the Revolution, when 
Albany became the base of resistance to the 
invasion from Canada under Burgoyne ; her 
sons, by their valor and exploits at Fort Ann 
and Fort Stanwix, checked the rapid advance 
of his columns, giving General Schuyler the 
needed time to reorganize his army for the 
decisive struggle at Stillwater ; and the men 
and women of Albany rivaled each other in 
their sacrifices to repel the invader, and, when 
he was captured, in their kindness and hospi- 
tality to their foes. 



23 

The United Provinces of the Netherlands 
formed the original model for the United 
States of America. The roots of the tallest 
trees lie out of sight, buried deepest in the 
ground. The fact that we do not see them 
does not diminish their value or their necessity. 
The obligation of the tree to them for its 
existence is not in the least impaired by their 
obscurity. So is it with the principles which 
form the roots of our civil and religious liberty. 
They were germinated in one of the smallest 
and most obscure of the nations of Europe, a 
mere dependency of the great monarchy of 
Charles V ; they were transplated here by the 
smallest colony that emigrated to our shores. 
But they took root and grew, and in a century 
and a half had produced so vigorous a tree in 
these United States, that their humble origin 
was forgotten under the vigor and vastness of 
their offspring, until brought to light again by 
Motley in his great histories. This was one 
of the landmarks which our fathers set, which 
we have received in trust, to keep it with 



24 

jealous and unceasing watchfulness, and to 
transmit it to our offspring. 

No one can truly keep this centenary who 
does not pay reverence to the care with which 
our fathers set up the great landmark of 
Religion and Learning. It is matter of his- 
tory that the common schools of Holland, sup- 
ported by a public tax, first suggested to John 
Robinson those of New England ; as he also 
learned there the custom of registering deeds 
and titles. No arrangement was made for set- 
tling the New Netherlands without careful 
provision for the instruction of the young, 
especially in the articles of the Christian 
Faith, and for the due and solemn worship of 
Almighty God. With the colonist came the 
schoolmaster ; and God has been confessed and 
honored here with public worship from the first 
settlement on our soil. The Calvinistic doc- 
trines decreed by the Synod of Dordrecht and 
enforced by the strong hand of the Stadtholder 
Maurice, never affected the frank cordiality of 
their nature, nor their hearty and thankful 
enjoyment of all the gifts of God in their time 



25 

and place. They held to the Apostles', Nicene 
and Athanasian creeds ; they professed high 
doctrine on the grace of the holy Sacraments ; 
they worshiped with a prescribed Liturgy ; 
they kept the ancient Christian fasts and 
festivals ; they maintained a doctrine of 
Apostolic Succession so uncompromising that 
for one hundred and fifty years they suf- 
fered no one to preach or administer the 
Sacraments who had not been ordained in 
Holland " with the laying on of the hands of 
the presbytery."^ A church was built and a 
learned and godly minister sent over from 
Holland, at the expense of the first Patroon. 
The first church built in New Amsterdam 
owed its existence to the example set at Fort 
Orange.^ Able and pious pastors left their 
charges in Holland to encounter the perils of 
the sea, and the dangers and privations of new 
colonies surrounded by cruel barbarians, that 
they might minister to their countrymen in 
the saving things of the Gospel of Christ. 

' Rev. Dr. Rogers' Hist. Discourse, pp. g8-ioa 
' Holland Docs, i, 299. 



26 

The proofs abound of their devotion, their 
fidelity, and their overflowing charity. The 
savage border-warfare with Canada brought 
into the hands of the Indians many hapless 
Frenchmen, whom they were wont to torture 
and slay with aggravating cruelties, as their 
manner was. Jesuit missionaries were the 
especial objects of their hatred and vengeance. 
Frequent rescues of these helpless sufferers 
from the hands of their captors, either by 
influence or by persuasion or by artifice, as 
the case might require, without consideration 
of nationality or difference in religious faith, 
fill many a pleasing page, and give a sweet 
and grateful flavor to the rude annals of the 
early days of our venerable town. Often the 
rescuers welcomed them to their homes, and 
concealed them at the risk of their own lives. 
Nothing is more moving as an illustration of 
the truest charity than the rescue and enter- 
tainment of Father Jogues by Dominie Mega- 
polensis, the first pastor of " the Colonie " and 
" Beverwyck." 

The missionary spirit animated them, and 



27 

the hapless " Wilden," slaves of ignorance, 
superstition, cruelty and lust, claimed their 
pity and evangelizing labors. They strove 
to master their rude and difficult languages 
in order that they might preach to them 
the unsearchable riches of Christ. Dominies 
Megapolensis and Dellius were especially for- 
ward in the conversion of the Mohawks; — a 
work in which Col. Pieter Schuyler and his 
family took an active and peculiar part. So 
early as 1628, Dominie Michaelius sketched a 
plan for the conversion of the Indians, which 
corresponds to that pursued by our own mis- 
sionaries at this day : 

"We must obtain the children, in order to place them 
under the instruction of some experienced and godly 
schoolmaster, where they may be instructed not only 
to speak, read and write in our language, but also 
especially in the fundamentals of our Christian religion, 
and where, besides, they will see nothing but good 
examples and virtuous lives ; but they must speak their 
native tongue sometimes among themselves in order 
not to forget it, as being evidently a principal means 
of spreading the knowledge of Religion through the 
whole nation. In the meantime it must not be forgotten 
to pray to the Lord, with ardent and continual prayers, 
for His blessing, who can make things which are unseen 
to be quickly and conveniently seen, who gives life to 



28 

the dead, calls as nothing that which is, and being rich 
in mercy has pity on whom He will ; as He has com- 
passionated our people to be His people, when we 
before were not pitied and were not His people ; and 
has washed us clean, sanctified us and justified us, when 
we were covered all over with all manner of corruption, 
calling us to the blessed knowledge of His Son, and 
from the power of darkness to His marvelous light. 
And this I regard so much the more necessary as the 
wrath and malediction of God, which have been found 
to rest upon this miserable people hitherto, are the 
more severe. May God have mercy on them finally, 
that the fullness of the heathen may be gradually 
accomplished, and the salvation of God may be here 
also seen among these wild and savage men." — Holland 
Docs, ii, 767, 768. 

Albany was the centre of the English mis- 
sions to the Indians. Church missionaries were 
sent to them carrying the Prayer-book trans- 
lated into the Mohawk tongue at the beginning 
of the last century by the devoted Freeman ; 
and they " were greatly affected by the Litany." 
Queen Anne testified her interest in them by 
gifts of service-books and sacramental plate, 
which still survive in this city and in the 
Mohawk settlements in Canada. Henry Bar- 
clay, rector of St. Peter's, took up the good 
work of his father in this field, and he had a 
congregation of "five hundred Indians, with 



29 

eighty regular communicants." When they 
came down from their castles and farms for 
the Easter celebration they gathered in the 
little chapel under the fort in State street in 
the early morning, and in their sonorous native 
tongue poured forth the Te Deum and the 
Benedictus, pronounced the creeds, responded 
in the Litany, and sang the Easter hymns, 
receiving with tears of penitence and solemn 
reverence the Blessed Sacrament of the Body 
and Blood of Christ. 

Such seem to me to be the chief land- 
marks which our fathers have set for us, and 
which, through the good providence of our 
God, stand for us to-day. We have received 
more to make us watchful than boastful, lest 
we dim the brightness of our inheritance. We 
have done worthy things in the past ; let us 
take heed that we do not mar them in the 
future. It was a citizen of Albany, Philip 
Schuyler, whose genius and enterprise origin- 
ated the great system of internal navigation 
which made our State the highway from the 
West to the Atlantic. It was another, Stephen 



30 

Van Rensselaer, who founded and endowed our 
first Polytechnic school. Another, Romeyn 
Beck, first opened the public mind to the 
vast stores of native minerals adapted to 
the useful arts ; aroused it to the proper 
treatment of the insane, and the education of 
mutes ; and is " known over the civilized world 
as the author and founder of Medical Juris- 
prudence, a science which he substantially 
created, ranking, wherever law and justice 
are administered, with Blackstone and Bacon, 
Grotius and D'Aguessau." ^ Another, Joseph 
Henry, first made the great discoveries in 

' Discourse at Semi-Centennial of Albany Academy, by Hon. A. 
W. Bradford. LL. D. 

"In 1823, Dr. Beck published his work, entitled 'Elements of 
Medical Jurisprudence,' in two volumes, octavo, which, at the time, 
attracted great attention, and has since continued a standing work on 
the subject of which it treats. * * * Although deeply studied in 
Italy, France and Germany, this science had scarcely attracted any 
attention, either in this country or in England, previous to the pub- 
lication of the work of Dr. Beck. To him certainly is due the high 
credit, not merely of arousing public attention to an important and 
neglected subject, but also of presenting a work upon it which will 
probably never be entirely superseded. In foreign countries its merits 
have been duly appreciated and magnanimously acknowledged." 
" In his native language his work is as yet without a parallel." 
— [Dr. Frank H. Hamilton's Eulogium before the New York State 
Medical Society and Senate and Assembly, February, 1856. 



31 

electro-magnetism which Morse applied to teleg- 
raphy, and which will soon be utilized in 
motors. In the long list of the worthies of 
Albany there are none more illustrious than 
Beck and Henry ; whose rare ability, untiring 
industry, and profound learning were only 
equaled by their simplicity and purity of 
character, their unaffected modesty, and their 
disinterested devotion to the welfare of their 
fellow-men. Leaders in scientific research and 
discovery, they only claimed to be the inter- 
preters of the works of God ; holding their 
great gifts and acquirements as His trustees 
for the benefit of His creatures ; ever refer- 
ring all to Him as the one Source of light 
and blessing.^ May they rest in peace in His 
light whom they served ! 

As we retrace the landmarks which our 
fathers have set, we read this moral : " Through 
wisdom is a house builded, and by understand- 
ing it is established ; and by knowledge shall 

' It is related of Henry that when entering on a crucial experi- 
ment he said to his assistant : " Take off your hat ; God is here, and 
I am about to put a question to Him," 



32 

the chambers be filled with all precious and 
pleasant riches." " Not by might, nor by 
power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of 
Hosts." And " let us hear the conclusion of 
the whole matter ; " " Remove not the ancient 

LANDMARK, WHICH THY FATHERS HAVE SET." 



OUR 

ANCIENT 

LANDMARKS. 



LElVly'lO 



